


Cuban Food

by rillrill



Category: The Big Short (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 03:37:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5569432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rillrill/pseuds/rillrill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world doesn’t end with Lehman Brothers, but they're still on their own. <i>Welcome to the real world, everything is totally fucked, but the good news is that you are very, very rich now.</i> Like getting the keys to your dad’s Ferrari and then finding out it’s because he left it to you in the will and also, your dad is dead and you knew it was coming but were powerless to stop it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cuban Food

**Author's Note:**

> I literally have no idea what I'm doing, but that scene at the end - that was a date, right? They were going on a date? Anyway, here's... this thing.
> 
> All fiction, not reality, obviously.

So the world doesn’t end with Lehman Brothers.  
  
It’s one of those things, Porter thinks, that all the predictions and statistical analyses and goddamn fucking _data_ in the world wouldn’t really even begin to scratch the surface of. The bubble has been his world for the past three, nearly four years. It’s a world unto itself, one that consumed him entirely. The Boy in the Bubble. Funny. Well, funny in a way.  
  
The world doesn’t end with Lehman Brothers, but Mark is just about done, and it seems like he and Danny and Vinny are all on their own now. _Welcome to the real world, everything is totally fucked, but the good news is that you are very, very rich now_. Like getting the keys to your dad’s Ferrari and then finding out it’s because he left it to you in the will and also, your dad is dead and you knew it was coming but were powerless to stop it. Really takes the air out of the triumph of that giant fucking check.  
  
Porter scratches the back of his neck as he paces outside the restaurant. He hates the East Village, he has no idea why he chose this place, he read about it in fucking New York Magazine or something and decided he had to check it out because Adam Platt gave it three stars. Minus a star for the ambiance, which is apparently not that great. He missed that part in the review until he picked it back up off his bathroom floor to double-check the address because the Yelp app kept crashing on his phone. And then he went to the Apple Store in Chelsea Market and bought a new phone.  
  
All anyone can talk about is the election, and Sarah Palin, and did you see Tina Fey last night, wasn’t she incredible, it’s wild how much they look alike, blah-blah-I can see Russia from my house. Somehow the election has overtaken the crash in the past couple weeks. He can’t figure it out, no matter how much he turns it over in his head, why the American public’s attention span is so short. It’s so damn shallow. And speaking of shallow, ugh, Danny has just shown up, ducking around the Indian-summer crowd in their shorts and t-shirts, looking relatively put together in his suit and oxford worn without a tie. Porter has no idea how he’s wearing it without breaking a sweat. He looks fucking good.  
  
Danny spots him pacing in front of the restaurant and pulls his earbuds from his ears and grins. “You’re super early.”  
  
“I’m always early.” Porter jerks his head toward the restaurant door. “They don’t take reservations. Place is packed. You want to just go get a drink somewhere else?”  
  
“No way!” Danny shakes his head emphatically. “That’s the exciting part. You know a place is good when you have to wait for a table.”  
  
“Danny, do you realize how many millions of dollars we’re collectively worth?” Porter says. “That’s so — we shouldn’t be waiting for tables. Fucking blood money on our hands, we might as well spend it right.”  
  
“Yeah, okay,” Danny says, all sarcastic. “Fuck it. Let’s just go gorge ourselves on the tasting menu at Per Se. Let’s be those guys. Pick up some models while we’re at it.”  
  
Porter grinds his molars a little. “That’s not what I’m saying. Per Se is overrated, by the way.”  
  
“I know!” Danny lets out a honking laugh at that, and Porter feels his face heat up. “Look. Do you, or don’t you, want Cuban food? Did you choose this place for any significant reason, or was it just the first thing that came to mind because you remembered seeing it reviewed in New York Magazine or something?”  
  
Porter is silent for a moment. “I was just thinking about Miami,” he says quickly, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets and looking away down Second Ave. “Listen, whatever. Want to take a rain check? Or call Vinny or something?”  
  
There’s a moment where Danny mirrors his body language in that weird way he just _does_ sometimes. Occupational hazard of spending three years in a hothouse with each other, or something. He looks the other way, and Porter should be kind of annoyed with how he’s flashing the good side of his profile and pretending to be casual about this. Like Danny doesn’t remember Miami, and the rum and cokes they downed at the hotel bar trying not to think about how hard the real world had bitch-slapped them in the face all day. Like Danny doesn’t remember how he’d laid a hand on Porter’s thigh to steady himself after a couple drinks too many and just left it there, warm and intimate, like this was just another thing they _did_.  
  
(Like Danny doesn’t remember how he’d kissed Porter on the left-hand bed in their shared hotel room, mostly lips but a little bit of tongue and teeth, and curled up on top of him atop the covers. Kissing in order to not talk about it. Kissing in order to think about something else other than homeless kids and swimming pools full of alligators. Just one of those things they didn’t ever talk about again.)  
  
“Nah,” Danny says after a beat. Because, hah, Porter knows him as well as the inverse. That’s exactly what he’s thinking about. “Let’s keep it to the two of us.”  
  
He reaches out and fiddles with the clip on Porter’s tie. Just for a second, just to straighten it. Porter hadn’t even noticed that it was crooked.  
  
“I know another place,” Porter says. Just looking for something else to say, now that they're simpatico, to fill the weird silence that seems to scream over the noise of street and foot traffic. “It’s not Cuban. They have really great arepas, maybe we could do that.”  
  
And whatever the cloud was that had just passed over Danny’s face, it immediately dissipates, because he shrugs again, good-natured as always, and nods emphatically. “That also sounds nice,” he says. “Can we not, though… can we eat anywhere but the East Village?”  
  
“Financial District,” Porter says. “So, I mean, it’s by my place. If you want to come over for a drink after…” He leaves it open-ended. There’s a ding of an arriving news alert on his new phone, and he glances down at the notification. Merrill Lynch stock just dropped another ten points over the last hour. Fucking great.  
  
He looks up, and his eyes flick up to Danny’s. Danny is looking at him with a kind of urgency, a hunger he’s seen before. “I wouldn’t mind a drink,” he says. “If you’ll have me.”  
  
“Yeah,” says Porter. “I mean. The world’s still turning. Might as well, y’know, carry on.”  
  
He’s pretty sure he feels a hand brush against the small of his back as they turn to hail a cab. He might have imagined it. He doubts it.


End file.
